Saturday, October 13, 2007

Ironically, as much as I love finding meaning in song lyrics, I don't enjoy reading regular poetry much. However, once in awhile there will be a verse that silently slips across my path, stirs up my chi, and flits away giggling while I'm left to figure out where that came from. Maybe there are fairies in charge of such things. As Ralph is also famous for quoting: "Some things have to be believed to be seen."

The Mystery by Ralph Hodgson

He came and took me by the hand
Up to a red rose tree,
He kept His meaning to Himself
But gave a rose to me.

I did not pray Him to lay bare
The Mystery to me,
Enough the rose was Heaven to smell,
And His own face to see.

Friday, October 12, 2007

"Don’t accept any statement because I made it. Even if it is true a hundred times over, it still is not your truth, it still is not your experience, and it will not belong to you. Bring truth into being, and then it will belong to you. Regard the lives of those who have achieved truth only as proof that the goal can be reached."

Written by Selvarajan Yeshudian about his teacher, Elizabeth Haich in the Foreword to Haich’s book Initiation

Jess sent me this picture in email this morning and I had to go look up the word that means assigning human characteristics to animals or objects because I couldn’t remember it – it’s anthropomorphism. I knew it was long and complicated, but an excellent word nonetheless. What family does the lemur belong to anyway? Cats? Monkeys? I seem to remember something about bears, but I could be thinking of red pandas. Survey says: monkeys. (God bless Google.) Well, they definitely create comedic prosimian pictures. (Wow, spellcheck doesn’t know prosimian. How sad.)

This guy reminds me of King Julien XIII, the Lemur King in the movie Madagascar, which is one of my favoritest animated flicks (Woo DreamWorks! I remember when they first got together and I told the advertising agency I was working for that we should be trying to get them as a client and they waved me off and said it would never last. :), which reminds me that I still haven’t seen Surf’s Up so I’ll have to rent that this weekend. Damn, I gotta switch to unleaded coffee in the morning. Focus, focus!

In other news, Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). CNN’s article on it is here:

There aren’t too many politicians I think are cool, but I absolutely admire what Al Gore has accomplished for the environment so far. He and his team have managed to put Earth’s distress into words and pictures that a surprisingly large percentage of the population seems to understand. Communication on that level is no small feat, especially for a politician.

I think you have to sell at least a small part of your soul just to be in the political arena (some just sell out entirely) so I don’t often trust people that can play that venue, but Gore seems to have a real interest in improving our Earthly practices. Makes me wonder what it’s like on October 12, 2007 in the dimension of the universe where evil was defeated, Florida knew how to count, and Gore won the 2000 election. I think I’d like to jump over to that reality please!

Politics is too much drama for me. I don’t even like dealing with office politics, much less national politics (yes, I do vote). I’ve been involved in my share of after-school-special-worthy family/friend bullshit, but as I look back I see that a lot of the time (not all) I was wading in to pull someone else out of the river and drowning myself in the process. I finally learned that you can’t save everyone and I’ll gladly throw you a rope, but I’m gonna stand here on the banks and stay dry. My daughter is the exception of course. She can still drag me in unwillingly, but I try not to flounder around for long.

It was really windy today, but turned out nice with the sun shining and great cloud formations scooting along the heavens. Tomorrow will be mostly sunny with a high of 63. Fall has finally arrived. Sweater weather is cool with me tho. I like the long sleeves and the cozy hot drinks and a good fire to sit by. I love summer too but I guess I’m ready for fall this year. New moon was on Thursday too. Too bad it was cloudy that night cuz that’s always the best time to see as many stars as possible. Okay, I’m just babbling now. I have such great thoughts in the car all the time but I can never remember what I wanted to write down by the time I get somewhere that I have the option. :sigh: Maybe I need one of those hand-held recorder things.

Today I'm thankful for beautiful days and starry nights, the flavor of organic oranges, DreamWorks, imagination, and dog treats that make our pooch hop around in happiness.

Monday, October 08, 2007

This is Spunky, my iguana iguana. He's a handsome 7-year-old psycho, weighing in at 7 pounds and reaching a stunted, but still impressive, length of 37 inches from his nose to the tip of his regenerated tail. If I had known seven would be his lucky number when we adopted him as a wee hatchling, I would've named him Seven instead of allowing my daughter to pick his moniker. Maybe that's why he's got such a guanatude - would you want to be called Spunky all your life when you could've had a really cool name like Seven? Me either.

I've lived with iguanas for 15 years now. My first one, Kiwi, left us for the Big Cosmic Beach last year at the age of 14. (An iguana's lifespan is 15-20 years.) She was an awesome friend and went through some serious life lessons with me, including moving cross country. She was the most docile creature I've ever had the privilege of caring for. She's the reason I have Spunkalicious. We were at the vet with her on a false alarm (call it serendipity, but I think she planned it in the dreamtime) and the receptionist told me Spunky's sad story. My arm twisted up like Dick Cheney's morals and I offered to take him in until he found another home, except his rehab ended up being longer than most celebritys' stay in the Betty Ford Clinic. He's family now and will be here until I can find a way to release him back in the wild.

Spunks is more of a challenge than Kiwi was because he was abused, and though I was able to heal his body brilliantly, his little prehistoric brain refuses to evolve past his ancient history. He's much more chill than he used to be, but there are moments when he thinks he's a young Johnny Depp. In fact, two snaps after this photo he brandished his tail at my camera and told me to get the fuck out of his cage.

Based on behavior observations, I suspect he was wild caught instead of captive bred. I've looked for research groups going to South America that could help me put him back in the wild, but so far I haven't found the right people. My relationship with the Spunkmeister has changed my opinion on keeping exotic animals captive. Rescuing them from an abusive situation may be helping that individual out at the time, but it doesn't help the problem where it starts. It's been hard to say no, but as my little zoo dwindles down over the years, I'm no longer taking in exotic rescues. I'd rather help educate people so they reach the same conclusions I have before anyone else is living in a cage.

Lizards have become one of my strongest totems, along with Dragonfly. According to many indigenous peoples' beliefs, lizards represent the Dreamtime, regeneration, and messages from the Great Mystery. Animal Speak, by Ted Andrews also relates great powers of observation, objective detachment, and feigning sleep while basking in the sun. (Much easier in California than New Jersey!) All these things go right along with my personality and I'm honored and grateful to share my physical and etheric space with these awesome critters. :)

I am editing this post to note that I did not make the time of the post 7:07 on purpose. That's just how things happen around me. :) I love those little divine winks - they convince me I'm always right where I should be. I also fixed the picture of Spunky at the top since Blogger didn't seem to like the one I uploaded from the computer. Just one more reason to stop being lazy and figure out the beast that is WordPress. I know it's free, but Google makes everything so easy!